My Top 3 Albums of the Decade and Top Song of the Year

Just yesterday we were driving in the car listening to music and I realized that I'd just found the third album in my top 5 albums of the decade. I only have 3 in my list but I feel confident that I'll find the other 2 soon. So, in chronological order they are...

Come on Feel the Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens. This album was a revelation to me. We'd just had Amia, my mom had just passed, we'd moved to a new city and I'd begun a new job. I was coming off several years of underground hip hop (Company Flow, Roots Manuva and Black Star stand out) and Rage Against the Machine and I needed something new. I needed something more family friendly, something that not only challenged my mind but encompassed my heart. This album was it. I think if I were to be an album I would be this one. The songs cover so many emotions, so many major life events that resonated and one song, Chicago, was even a bit autobiographical as my friend Erik and I had gone on a road trip out east, slept in parking lots and drove back to Chicago. Above all though this album captured my struggle to understand what it means to be a man. With so many changes in my life, from fatherhood to being the sole provider, my understanding of manhood was changing as well. The themes in this album, from step/mothers to childhood friends to regret over injuries caused to dear ones to losing someone to cancer to...Decatur, all deeply resonated with me. Added to all that are probably the best song titles I've ever seen on an album! Below is the song that probably stands out to me the most.

The second album is Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron and Wine. The themes of the album range from losing a loved one to what it means to be a man...I seriously JUST noticed the pattern here. Hehe. I think Sam Beam, the primary writer and musician in the group which has a rotating cast, had just lost his father and given birth to a child. That song in particular, Sodom South Georgia, was the first time I'd heard anyone talk about the dynamics of birth and death, especially when they happen so closely together, and it pretty much felt like he was singing my life. The poetry in these songs is so beautiful and perfectly captures these major life experiences. From that song he writes, "Papa died smiling/Wide as the ring of a bell/Small as a wish in a well...Papa died Sunday/And I understood...Papa died while my girl/Lady Edith was born/Both heads fell/Like eyes on a crack in the door." And then the song Each Coming Night which breaks my heart EVERY SINGLE TIME I hear it, asking his love what she'll say about him after he's gone, to his parents, his kids and how she'll think of him. Here's another favorite song from that album...

And the third album is Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago. This album was written singlehandedly in a cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin. The singer had just ended a long relationship, his band had broken up and he had mono. As he was watching Northern Exposure in the cabin (he had me at hello with that one) he saw that episode where it snows for the first time and the residents of Cicely come out and wish each other a good winter (bon hiver?). He knew it was going to be one too so he grabbed the name. The whole album captures that time of transition almost perfectly. Aside from the beauty of the music and the lyrics, listening to this album is like listening to my own personal life soundtrack. Ever since Suzanne and I took the biggest leap of our lives last year (and every day since has been a series of leaps of varying sizes) our life has been in major transition. This album accounts for what gets lost in times of transition but also looks forward to the healing and magic that can happen. My favorite line? "Your love will be safe with me." The whole past year has been an attempt to understand that this is what God promises each of us and that this is perhaps the greatest gift we can offer each other.

Shoot, I think I'm too tired to post my favorite song of the year. To be continued...